5 Ways to Find Deals on Maternity Clothes

Looking for discounted maternity clothes? Check these 6 tips.

If you find out you’re expecting, your first order of business probably isn’t running out and buying a new wardrobe, but you’ll probably find over time that you’ll need some bigger clothes to fit your growing body. Fortunately, your new outfits aren’t necessarily going to set you back thousands of dollars. There are some quick and simple ways to find cheap maternity clothes, as long as you know a few easy strategies.

1. Start With Clothing Extenders

Before you run out and pick up nine months’ worth of clothes, you’ll want to wait and see exactly how your body grows. We all grow differently during pregnancy, and the right clothes will depend on which way your baby presents. Therefore, if you buy a set of clothing up-front, you might find that you’ve spent money on clothes that don’t fit properly down the line.

Once your clothes start getting snug during the first few months of pregnancy, consider picking up a clothing extender so you can keep wearing your pre-pregnancy outfits without discomfort. Products like the Bellaband allow you to continue wearing your jeans and other pants, with the garment holding the pants up even if you can’t button them. You can also pick up bra hook extenders so your bras can work for you a little bit longer into your pregnancy.

2. Maximize Your Stretchy Clothes

Pretty much anything made of jersey (T-shirt) material will be your friend during the early (and sometimes middle) stages of your pregnancy, because they stretch well. You’ll want to bring these outfits front and center so they can grow with you, allowing you to stave off the urgency of buying new maternity clothes.

3. Buy Used Maternity Clothes

From Craigslist to eBay to Poshmark to yard sales, you’ll find no shortage of used maternity clothes from a variety of sources. After all, the original owner of the clothes only wore them for less than nine months, and may no longer need them. You can therefore find great bargains by purchasing the clothing second-hand.

4. Rent Your Wardrobe

Those of us who need to go beyond casual clothes and require more professional maternity clothes may end up spending a lot more, because it’s hard to find a corporate wardrobe for under a few hundred dollars. This is where renting comes into play.

Mine for Nine is a site that allows you to borrow maternity clothes for up to a month, and then you return the outfit after you’re done with it or you outgrow it. If you absolutely love the item and you can’t bear the thought of sending it back, the site gives you the option to buy it outright.

Rent the Runway also offers the opportunity to borrow maternity clothes. For about $150 a month, you can rent four outfits at a time for as long as you want to keep them. Whenever you’re ready, send back your outfit and borrow a new one.

5. Join A Swap Site

Many towns are home to maternity swap clubs, where you can trade maternity clothes with other pregnant women. If you don’t know of one in your area, check meetup groups or Facebook, as well as local moms’ clubs. If you can’t find one, you can join one on Facebook, where maternity clothes swap groups can be found easily, either locally or by shipping clothes to one another.

6. Shop Clearance, Sales and Closeouts

﻿If you absolutely must buy new clothes, you can find maternity styles on discount at outlets, clearance racks, sales and closeouts. Most maternity retailers discount their clothing well before the end of each season, so prices of summer clothes are likely to be cut at the beginning of August, allowing you more time to wear them before the warm season ends and before you outgrow them.

Check low-cost shops like Target, Old Navy, TJ Maxx and Walmart for lower-priced maternity clothes, and always bring coupons or use online promo codes to get even bigger deals on these outfits.

7. Don't Forget Post-Pregnancy Clothes

Many women are eager to sell their maternity clothes as soon as they move onto the next stage of pregnancy, but remember that the clothes you outgrow early in your pregnancy might be necessary after the baby is born. Most of us don't bounce back to our pre-pregnancy size right after giving birth, so the clothes that fit you when you're four or five months pregnant might be just what you need to wear when you get home from the hospital or birthing center.